For those of you who have children, you know that there is “the story.” For my mother, there are five of them. With Carrie she was so drugged up she couldn’t point her out in the nursery. Tommy I think is the one where every doctor, nurse, cafeteria worker and janitor in the hospital took a peek before she finally delivered him. Laura — 10 pounds, two sets of forceps, double-episotomy, born arm first with a tooth (that’s a good one). Amy was born during Monday Night Football. Me? Well, I shot out so fast she almost left me right there on the hospital floor. Nice.

My stories are lame. I was totally drugged up and had both my children removed from me — against their will — in a nice, sterile operating suite. Hank refused to come out. George didn’t get the chance to even try.

Everyone can chip in something here. What you or your wife or your girlfriend went through. But no matter how you tell the story, to you, it seems fairly unbelievable. I mean, you DID that. You made that kid. Cool.

But, as far as baby stories go, no one can top the delivery of one Miss Lilah, born to my friend Nancy and her husband Mark (and big sister Cara) this week. In Nancy’s own words:

I delivered my own child. Yes I did.

Lilah Jane was born yesterday morning around 9:10. My contractions were still 6 minutes apart, so I told Mark to take Cara to daycare. I figured I’d get dressed and we’d head for the hospital when he got back. As soon as the van door closed I knew I’d made a bad call. I figured the best thing to do was get up, get dressed, and go sit with next-door-neighbor Jen until Mark got back.

I went and sat on the potty, and my water broke. I yelled out the window for Jen, but she had gone into her basement to work out. I told myself not to push, but my body wasn’t listening to me. At that point I realized the baby was ready to come out. I gave one good push, and most of her was out. One more good push and there she was. No I did not drop her in the toilet (but I think her feet got wet). So now I’m stuck on the in the bathroom with no help and a waxy, blue baby. Fortunately I had read just the night before what to do if you accidentally gave birth at home. I did what I could to clear her airway, wrapped her in a towel draped her cord over my arm since the placenta hadn’t been delivered yet, and walked over to my bed.

After calling 911 I ran over to the window and called Jen again, which still did me no good. I couldn’t call anyone else because 911 wouldn’t let me off the phone. The EMT’s were there pretty fast, but Mark had locked the door (ever safety conscious). Poor Jen – just about to get in the shower and wrapped in a towel -was running around her house looking for my house key.

They didn’t break down the door because they knew I was ok, so they found an open kitchen window and climbed through. They grabbed the baby, cut the cord and sent her on her way to the hospital. Right about this time Mark turned down our street and had a mini cardiac episode when he saw all the emergency vehicles at our house. He came up to see his blood covered wife starting to kind of pass out on the bed, with 6 EMT guys standing around. One of them offered me a sheet to cover myself with. I looked around and asked if anyone really thought my modesty was an issue at that point.

I had a partial placental abruption, so my upstairs looked like a crime scene (which my poor mom cleaned up) – which got even grosser when my placenta delivered. Then they packed me up (tromping around in the blood all the while) and sent me off in my own ambulance. Lilah is fine. She spent the night in the NICU. I feel great and aside from lots of blood loss I ended up in pretty good shape.

Dudes… she delivered her OWN child. Alone. In the bathroom. And not like, I’m at the prom and my mom doesn’t know I’m pregnant so I’ll push it out and leave it in paper towels in the corner then go dance with my boyfriend. More like, I have a bag packed and names picked out and I’ve called the maternity ward ahead of time and I STILL managed to have her on the fine radiant heat tiles! She’s like a genuine case of “I didn’t know I was pregnant” only she TOTALLY KNEW she was pregnant!

5 responses to “A whole new level of bad ass”

a) she is bad ass
b) she takes care of everyone else, so it’s only logical she can take care of herself
c) she doesn’t leave for the airport until 45 minutes before her flight.. just like her to be running late to the hospital

I waited almost 20 hours to go to the hospital because the Sox were in the World Series Playoffs. Then was in labor for another 8 before my kid actually realized what was going on and came out. It pretty much sucked (second kid was so easy a caveman could do it). I’m sitting here deciding which is preferable: long and arduous or instantly. Hmmm… its like a Tootsie Pop, the world will never know.